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rr.OV[DENTIAL DESIGN OP THE SLAVERY AGITATION. 



SERMON 



PRKACHKD TO THE 



Congregational Church of Gloversville 



I^ational Fast Ba^i, January 4tK, 1861. 



13y the Rev» Hoixiei* N. DuiininRs 



'* Is not this the Fast that I have chosen ! to loose the bonds of 
wickcdneas, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go 
free, and that ye break every yoke." — Isaiah Iviii : 6. 



GLOVERSVIL\K: 

A. PIERSON. BOOK & JOB PRINTER. 

1861 



PROVIDENTIAL DESIGN OF THE SLAVERY AGITATION. 



SERMON 



PREACHED TO THE 



Congregational Church of Gloversville 



National Fast ®ai^, lanuar^ M, I88I, 



By the Rev. Homer N. Dunning. 



" Is not this the Fast that I have chosen 1 to loose the bonds of 
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go 
free, and that ye break every yoke." — Isaiah Iviii : 6. 



GLOVERSVILLE: 

A. PIERSON, BOOK <t JOB PRINTER. 

1861 



DISCOUESE. 



•Joshua xxiii, 13. " Know for a certainty that the Lord your God 
■vrill no more drive out any of tliese nations from before you ; but 
they shall be snares and ti'aps unto you, and scourges in your 
sides, aad thorns in your eyes." 



Soon after tbe family of Noah left the ark, an event 
occurred in their experience, which to a large part of the 
human race, had almost the character and effect of a second 
fall of man. That event was the shameful and sensual sin 
of Ham, one of the sons of Noah, placed in contrast with 
the honorable and filial piety of Shem and Japheth, his two 
brethren. Discerning in their character, as shown. on that 
occasion, the germs and first-fruits of the conduct and des- 
tinies of their posterity, the patriarch seizes the opportu- 
nity for casting the horoscope of the future, and fore- 
shadowing the fortunes of his children and their descend- 
ants. You will mark that he speaks not by any authority 
of God, but by his own patriarchal and prophetic insight, 
forecasting the future. He cries to his children : first ; 
" cursed be Canaan" — Canaan is named only as a represen- 
tative of the whole posterity of Ham — " a servant of ser- 
vants shall he be to his brethren ;" next ; " blessed be the 
Lord God of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant;" 
and lastly ; " God shall enlarge Japheth and he shall 
dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his ser- 



4 Discourse. 

yant." There, my hearers, I suppose, is the place where 
" the irrepressible conflict" began between the curse of 
slavery and the blessing of freedom. 

The first fulfilment of the prophecy took place among the 
posterity of Shem. " Blessed" indeed was " the Lord 
God of Shem," and the God of blessing — the patriarchal 
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in whom " all the 
nations of the earth should be blessed" — the covenant God 
of Israel, the heirs of promise and blessing, " of whom as 
concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all God 
blessed for ever." The Israelites — the lineal children of 
Shem — inherited this blessing in the possession of the 
land of promise as a free and holy people of God ; the 
Canaanifces, the lineal children of Ham, inherited the 
ancestral curse in their subjection and slavery to Israel as 
an outcast and servile people. It was not accidental that 
they could not be exterminated from the land by the 
armies of Israel ; it was not accidental that many of them 
became " servants of servants" — " hewers of wood and 
drawers of water" to Israel ; it was all by permission of 
Divine Providence, in order that by their insurrections, 
their sensualities, their idolatries, they might furnish occa- 
sions for the moral trial and discipline of Israel — occasions 
for putting to the proof their fidelity to the truth and right- 
eousness of God. So the text declares ; " know for a cer- 
tainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any 
of these nations from before you." And why not ? 
Because they must remain to be " snares and traps unto 
you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes." 
And so they did remain, living among them, generation 
after generation — their slaves and their enemies — a per- 
petual temptation and trial — a fretting torment and nuisance 
— " snares and traps," " scourges" and " thorns," not to 
be got rid of — not to be endured. That was the form of 
" the irrepressible conflict" between Israelite and Canaan- 



Discourse. 5 

ite — between the freedom and blessing of the children 
of Shem and the slavery and curse of the children of 
Ham. 

The corresponding fulfilment of the prophecy among the 
posterity of Japheth has fallen upon our own times and 
experience. In the year 1620, two ships landed upon the 
shores of North America, each bringing a cargo of immi- 
grants. One ship was the May Flower, bringing from 
Europe to New England a colony of one hundred Puritan 
Englishmen — Anglo-Saxons of the great Germanic race — 
•hildren of Japheth ; the freest, purest, noblest body of 
men that ever went forth to found a nation and possess a 
great inheritance. They carried in their hearts the prin- 
ciples of freedom and equality in their simplest forms — 
freedom of conscience, and equality of rights before God 
— resolved to embody these principles in their Church and 
State. Therefore on the ship before they landed, they 
laid the corner-stone of their free institutions by forming 
" a civil body-politic," or as we should say, a constitution^ 
for the protection of their freedom and rights. They were 
soon followed by others of kindred spirit, who colonized 
the whole of New England ; and their descendants have 
spread far and wide, carrying the principles and institu- 
tions of freedom and human rights in their purest and 
simplest form. Palfrey, in his just published history of 
New England, tells us, that there are now in the country 
over three millions of native New Englanders ; and that 
nearly one-third of the white population of the country — 
seven or eight millions — are more or less directly of New 
England descent ; while the leaven of New England influ- 
ence has been even more prominent and powerful, God 
has " enlarged" these children of Japheth, " dwelling" as 
they do "in the tents of Shem"— -dwelling under the pro- 
tection, and inheriting the blessing of the God of Israel ; 



6 Discourse. 

and has given them freedom, broad territories and a great 
iiiheritance. 

The other ship which lauded in the same year 1620, 
brought from Africa to Virginia a gang of twenty negroes 
— Congo slaves of the great African race — children of 
Ham ; the blackest, poorest, most abject and degraded of 
mankind. Spain and Portugal had before imported negro 
slaves into the West Indies and South America ; but 
these were the first brought into the English colonies. 
They were the forerunners of multitudes of others, whom 
the Slave-trade for two centuries continued to bring into 
the country. They also have multiplied and spread them- 
selves far and n-ide, uutil they now number four millions ; 
and their condition and destiny has become the great and 
troublous question of American politics. Canaan has 
become the servant of Japheth ; and with the same result 
as when he became the servant of Shem ; " a snare and a 
trap unto us, a scourge in our sides, and a thorn in our 
eyes" — a perpetual cause of agitation and trial — a trouble 
and an eyesore, not to be got rid of, hardly to be endured. 
This is the form of " the irrepressible conflict" between 
Japheth and Ham — between the enlargement and blessing 
of the free European, and the oppression and curse of the 
enslaved African, It seems to me suitable to this occasion 
— to this time wheti the conflict appears to be drawing 
near a crisis, or at least a trying ordeal — to consider the 
Providential Design of slavery and the slavery agitation 
and conflict in relation to us and to the nation. And this 
will teach us what sins to feel and confess to-day. 

In one word, the design of God in this controversy 
is to ajflict and discipline the nation. Let us see how. 

I. I answer first, it seems to be God's design to trouble 
the nation by this conflict in order to kcc}) vs from moral 
stagnation. It w^ould have been much pleasanter for the 



Discourse. 7 

Israelites, "if they could have utterly exterminated the 
Canaanites, and then settled down at ease in their goodly 
land, " flowing with milk and honey," with nothing to do 
but to eat the fat and drink the sweet — to trade, and make 
money, and grow rich and powerful. That, no doubt, was 
the desire and hope of their hearts. But, sad to say, this 
was not the chief end of man then, and never will be. 
This was not the way God governed the world then, and 
is not the way now. Men must have something to trouble 
them — to stir up their quiet nests — to break up their 
worldly ease — to blast their selfish hopes — to make them 
know that man's chief end is to glorify Clod and do his 
will — to seek first his kingdom and righteouness. One 
grand agency for the doing of this in Israel was their 
Canaanite enemies and slaves, serving for generations as 
the rod of God's judgments upon them ; the snare by 
which their feet were entrapped into sin — the scourge in 
their sides by which their flesh was tormented — the thorn 
in their eyes by which their souls was fretted and 
troubled. 

God is using African slavery in our land for the same 
discipline. It were much more pleasant for us if the 
African had never come hither — if slavery had never 
cursed the nation ; it were much more pleasant if we 
could be left at our ease, to possess the land, to enjoy 
its resources, to trade and grow rich and great. But ah ! 
that is not the best way ; and therefore it is not God's 
way. The nation would have been in danger of ruin by 
worldly prosperity and moral stagnation. Our glorious 
country — our fruitful fields of wheat and cotton — our 
heaps of gold and silver — our farms and merchandize 
would have stolen away the nation's heart from the God 
of our fathers, from truth and duty, from liberty and 
rightoousners. 



8 Discourse. 

So, then, God permitted tlie African to he brouglit here, 
with the yoke of slavery upon his neck, in the very year 
that the Puritan Englishman came here with a free heart in 
his breast. And when the hour struck in his Providence, 
then the word of God came forth from this free heart 
crying : Agitate ! agitate ! agitate I Overturn ! over- 
turn ! OVERTURN I And the agitation and overturning 
began, in individual minds, in families, in Churches, in 
communities, in Societies, in political parties, in Con- 
gresses, in the whole nation of thirty-one millions. Men 
have tried to stifle and crush out this agitation — selfish 
and worldly men — quiet and peace-loving men — pious and 
conservative men ; they hare piled upon it mountains of 
resolutions and compromises ; but it would not be stifled 
and crushed out ; it has proved itself to be the true fire 
of God by rending its way through these mountains, and 
burning them to ashes and cinders. I pretend not to 
justify the Anti-Slavery movement in this country ; the 
God of Providence will justify that ! I pretend not to 
justify the excesses of violent and malignant spirits, 
whether on one side or the other ; the God of righteous- 
ness will judge them I But I pity the blindness of the 
man, who can not see the outstretched arm of God made 
bare, both in the existence of slavery, and in the agitation 
for its overthrow. 

This agitation is God's wonderful work for the troubling 
of our Israel. Nor is it the unmixed evil which some imagine 
it to be. Rather it is our life and hope as a free people. 
Agitation is the life and blessing of the whole universe. 
The tides, and currents, and tempests, that agitate the 
ocean serve to purify its waters. The winds, and cloud«i 
and lightnings, yea even the whirlwinds, that agitate the 
atmosphere, serve to purify the air and refresh the earth. 
It is especially the life and blessing of nations. They 



Discourse. 9 

have, or used to have, no national agitations in China ; hut 
who envies the stolid and lethargic indifference of her 
three or four hundred millions ? They have few national 
agitations in Russia ; but who envies the sluggish or stag- 
nant despotism of that barbaric empire? Whereas a free 
and favored nation like England has had one long history 
«f agitation ; within two thousand years, she has been four 
times conquered, thrice torn by civil war, agitated by revo- 
lutions, reformations, political and religious conflicts, with- 
out number or end ; and this is what has made her the 
free, great, powerful nation she is. Who would prefer the 
stillness and stagnation of the Dead Sea to the stirring 
life and movement of the Mediterranean, or even to the 
storms and surges of the wild Atlantic ? The agitation 
of the subject of slavery in our country is God's method 
of keeping the nation from stagnation — a painful nrocess, 
it may be, hateful to the flesh, but necessary and whole- 
some to the spirit I Who would dare to ask God to take 
this thorn out of our flesh, and leave us to our worldly 
•ase and quiet and luxury untroubled ? 

II. Another design of God in this providential agitation 
has been to compel intelligent and Christian men to give 
personal attention to national affairs, and especially to 
apply moral and religious principles to politics. No nation, 
as truly as no individual, can live long and prosper without 
moral life in ita heart, and moral principle in its conduct. 
Corruption and disease will consume its vitality and rot 
out its strength, just as they are now consuming the dead 
and rotten government at Washington. The best intelli- 
gence and virtue of the nation must inspire and govern 
its affairs. Now we know that so it was in the early 
history of the country ; so it was in the times of the Revo- 
lution, and many years after. Names of great men in 
politics were then names of noble and Christian patriots 



10 Discourse. 

and statesmen wliom we love to remember and honor. But 
bow great a fall — how base a degeneracy from them to 
, those small politicians of our times, who are too mean 
and contemptible to be named at all — who do not know 
what moral principle is — who do not believe there is such 
a thing above human governments as " God's Higher Law" 

who do not believe there is such a thing above human 

slavery as man's n;]tural and Christian rights — who scout 
the Declaration of Independence as a tissue of glaring 
falsehoods, or of glittering generalities. 

One grand reason why this result has come about, is 
because men have divorced their morals and religion from 
their politics. Or rather, moral and religious men have 
left political affairs to low and intriguing politicians. 
They have occupied themselves with their families, their 
business, their studies, their personal interests, leaving the 
ignorant, the vicious, the demagogues, to elect the officers 
and administer the government, either sustaining them at 
the polls, or refusing to have anything to do with politics 
at all. So far had this gone, that when a Christian man, 
above all a minister, dared to say a word upon the political 
duties of men, he was denounced for " dabbling in the 
dirty pool of politics," and " mixing up politics with relig- 
ion." To such a pass had things come I " Oh, what a 
fall was there my countrymen I" from the times when the 
first free constitution of America was formed by the Puri- 
tan Pilgrims, on the May Flower, " for the glory of God 
and advancement of the Christian faith ;" from the times 
when, in Massachusetts and Connecticut, a moral and 
religious character was the condition of citizenship and 
office ; from the times when Independence was declared, 
and the Constitution framed by the brightest intelleota 
and noblest spirits of the nation, *' appealing to the 



Discourse. 11 

Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their 
Intentions." 

A change must needs come, if the nation was to live 
and do God's work in the world. The existence of 
slavery, with its evils, its aggressions, its extension, and 
the rise and progress of the Anti-Slavery movement, are 
the agencies God has used for working this change. 
These have been the scourges in God's hand to whip 
moral and religious men into the doing of their political 
duties. That was a grand day for the nation, when three 
thousand ministers of New England put off the silver 
slippers of ofScial propriety, and walked bare-footed into 
the political "pool" of the U. S. Senate, bearing their 
petition against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; 
and history has vindicated the wisdom and necessity of 
their remonstrances I That was a high day in our history 
when ten thousand pulpits and platforms resounded with 
denunciations of the bloody outrages in Kansas ; for it 
heralded a great moral revolution I This is an eventful 
time in our experience to-day, when all business men are 
compelled by the scourge of events to have political 
opinions, and to act and vote ; when even the most conserva- 
tive and pro-slavery minister has hi.^ mouth opened, and 
his tongue loosed to speak according to his light, of the 
moral and Christian duties of men in respect to ijolitics .' 
God be thanked that all citizens have now, or pretend to 
have, a conscience in politics — an earnest mind to utter, 
and a ready heart to act, whether for slavery or against it ! 
God be praised for this fresh breeze from the pure moun- 
tains where God dwelleth ! Storms and tempests may 
come upon its wings, but who does not prefer them to the 
dead and parched air of the desert, or the foul and 
poisonous miasma of the swamp I 



12 Discourse. 

III. A third design of God in this Providential agita- 
tion, is to test our fidelity to the principles of our fathers, 
and to xcorlc out the problem of human rights and free- 
dom. The Puritan founders of New England believed 
that every man as a man stands before God free and equal 
to his fellow-man. They believed that Christianity 
means essentially redemption or freedom ; first of all 
spiritual freedom — deliverance of the soul from the curse 
and bondage of sin ; next religious freedom — liberty to 
worship according to their own consciences ; then i7itel- 
Icctual freedom — liberty to think according to their own 
free minds, and speak their own free thoughts ; then civil 
freedom — liberty to act and vote in the government of 
public affairs ; and finally, personal freedom — liberty to 
own and control one's own person, property and labor. 
These principles of Christian freedom, they wrought out 
and embodied in their institutions ; not always acting 
consistent with them, but always toiling painfully toward 
their full application. The Declaration of Independence : 
•' that all men are created equal; that they are endowed 
by their Creator with certain ioalienable rights ; that 
among these rights are life, libsrty, and the pursuit of 
happiness ; and that to secure these rights governments 
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from 
the consent of the governed" — this Declaration expressed 
the honest and Christian conviction of the nation's heart 
eighty-five years ago, both North and South. 

But that conviction cost something. It cost the fathers 
banishment from England, It cost labor, struggles, sufier- 
ing, self-denial, losses, blood. It cost revolution and war. 
But they chose to pay the dear price, not counting the 
cost, or rather counting it all, but paying it willingly for 
the truth and liberties they loved. They bequeathed the 
heritage thus bought to their posterity. Will the\j value 



Discourse. 13 

and cherish it ? Will they prove faithful to their charge, 
by working out for mankind their natural and Christian 
liberties ? That is the question to be solved in our 
history. 

So, then, the African must come here — the lowest of 
mankind; he must come and wear the yoke of personal 
slavery — the worst forsa of human bondage. And in 
God's own time, when African slavery has grown strong 
and powerful, He will come to the nation — as He comes now 
— with the trying question, which is like fire to search 
and burn our hearts : Do you believe what the fathers 
believed ? Do you believe that all men have natural and 
Christian rights to life and liberty — to self-ownership, self- 
control, and the produce of their own labor — rights essen- 
tially inalienable ? Do you believe — according to the 
Divine maxim — that you are bound to give to others, even 
the blackest, poorest, meanest African slave, the same 
rights and liberties of humanity and Christianity, which 
you claim for yourselves ? If you believe this, dare you 
stand up for your faith, speaking it, acting it, voting it ? 
Dare you do it at the price of self-sacrifice, losses, revolu- 
tions, disunion, it may be, bloodshed ? I suppose these to 
be the questions by which God is now trying the mind 
and heart of this nation, as never before since the times 
when the same principles "tried men's souls" in the days 
of the fathers. It seems plain that this nation is working 
out for the poor slave — the accursed child of Ham — and 
through him for all the races of mankind, the grand truth 
of Christianity, that every man is a man and a redeemed 
man, and as such has a Divine worth and sacredness, and 
ought to have the rights and liberties of a redeemed and 
Christian humanity. 

I believe that fidelity to human freedom, in this form, 
18 more trying to us than it was to the fathers, for they 



14 Discourse. 

wrouglit out the problem for themselves, ^vhile we must 
work it out for others, for an alien race — for a poor, out- 
cast, servile people, against whom we feel the strongest 
natural antipathy. But we must remember that to main- 
tain the rights of others, according to the doctrine of 
universal rights, is the only way to preserve our own. 

You know that when the Jews tried to hoard up for 
themselves their special privileges as exclusively their 
own, because they were the children of Abraham, although 
these privileges had been given to them expressly for 
the blessing of all the nations of the earth, that Christ 
came to break down the wall of partition, and give these 
blessings to all men ; first of all to the publican, the Gali- 
lean, the Samaritan, ah mark you, the poor Canaanite 
woman of Syro-Phenicia, descendant of the son of Ham — 
descendant of the conquered and servile tribes of Canaan 
— willing to come as " a dog" to " eat of the crumbs that 
fell from the Master's table," of which the proud Pharisee 
refused to eat at all. 

So God is putting us to the sharp test, whether the 
liberty He has given us is to be hoarded as our exclusive 
possession, or to be extended to all men, even the African 
slave. Therefore as an American citizen and Christian, 
I thank God for the providential scourges of slavery and 
slavery agitation, which are teaching men by stern chas- 
tisement, the great principles of human rights and Chris- 
tian freedom. Therefore I rejoice in the fiery ordeal 
through which the nation is now passing, though it may 
consume many darling opinions and prejudices, and revolu- 
tionize many cherished institutions ; for the hand of God 
is in it, pushing on the wheels of his kingdom for the 
redemption of all the races of mankind. 

IV. One more design of God in this providential 
agitation, is to humble our national jtride, vain-glonj, self- 



Discourse. 15 

complacence. If there had been no Canaanites left in the 
land to trouble Israel, they might have become even more 
exalted in their pride and self-sufficiency than they did. 
So these enemies and slaves remained to be " thorns in 
their eyes," when tempted to vanity and self-importance. 
So our nation was peculiarly liable to such a danger ; so 
wonderful has been our history — so unparalleled our 
prosperity — so rich, great, powerful we have become. 
Indeed we have the reputation in Europe of being the 
most vain-glorious people of the civilized world. So, then, 
God long ago prepared this thorn to be stuck into our 
eye. 

A thorn in the eye — mark the meaning of that I The 
eye i.s the most tender and sensitive member of the whole 
body, and the sharp point of a thorn could prick no where 
else so painfully as there. And what is the tenderest 
place in our American pride ? Ah, it is our freedom — this 
is what we glory in, and vaunt to the heavens I So, then, 
God has stuck the thorn just there in the eye — wounding 
us right where we feel the tenderest — paining us right 
where we feel the most vain-glorious — humbling us right 
where we feel the proudest. How many times has our 
American pride of freedom been wounded by the prickly 
remembrance of our millions of slaves I How many times 
has our national vanity shrunk its wide-spread peacock 
feathers, when other nations have pointed at the black feet 
under these brilliant plumes I How many times have our 
missionaries blushed and hid their faces, when their 
Heathen and Mussulman inquirers have heard that free 
and Christian America cherishes, vindicates and extends 
human slavery I Ah, indeed, how we feel to-day like hiding 
our heads with shame and confusion of face, that a large 
number of the American people — heirs of liberty — 
threaten to pull down our temple of freedom, because 



16 Discourse. 

forsooth I the nation has voted not to curse any more 
territory with African bondage ! Be sure that the God of 
Providence has thrust this very thorn into our eyea, for 
the express purpose of piercing the tenderest nerve of 
our self-complacent, vain-glorious pride of freedom ! 

It is said that one of the Egyptian Kings used to have 
in his palace, near his throne, a human skeleton, to keep 
him humble in view of the prospect of his own nsortality. 
African slavery is the skeleton which God has brought 
into our national temple, to make us humble, to bring down 
our pride, to remind us of our sins. He would make U8 
conscious of our dependence on Him for our freedom and 
blessings}; and of our obligation, instead of hoarding them 
for ourselves, to dispense them as a sacred trust for all the 
families of mankind — and above all, according to the prin- 
ciples and example of Christ — to give the first and the 
most to those who are poorest and neediest I 

I could mention other evident designs of Providence in 
the existence and agitation of slavery ; it would be 
especially interesting for us to consider these designs in 
respect to the condition and destinies of the negro race, 
both here and in Africa ; but I forbear. It may be thought 
by some of you that I should have confined myself to-day 
to the present difficulties of the country. But it seemed 
to me better to refresh your minds with some of the great 
principles that underlie the events of the present. The 
mariner best determines his position on the ocean by 
observing the heavens — those eternal stars that never 
change place, but always shine the same. So we take 
observations of these Divine and eternal principles of 
God's providence, in order to see present events in the 
right light. 

Well, then, here is our criterion of humiliation, fasting 
and prayer. We do not mourn to-day over the agitation 



Discourse. 17 

of slavery ; it is God's Tfork, and not man's ; it is x 
national blessing and not a curse. We do not mourn over 
the application of religion to politics ; that also is God'i 
work and not man's ; it is a thing to be welcomed and 
rejoiced over. We do not mourn over our love of freedom 
— freedom for ourselves — freedom for all men — freedom 
for our territories. That we inherit, for our fathers loved 
it ; it runs in our blood ; it beats in our hearts ; it is 
ingrained in the fibre of our flesh ; ah, it is stamped upon 
our consciences, and God has stamped it there in the 
lineaments of his own image and likeness ! We are not 
■orry that, after long struggles, we have elected a Presi- 
dent on the plain issue of freedom or slavery, as the 
national creed ; we are glad of it, because we have tried 
to do our duty conscientiously, and if we had it to do 
over, we should do the same thing again. We are sorry 
that such an event should breed trouble, revolution, excite- 
ment ; but we know that God's truth in this world must 
bring " not peace ; but a sword." 

We recognize in these troubles and difficulties God's 
snares and traps for our feet, scourges for our sides, thorns 
for our eyes. We feel humbled over our past unfaithful- 
ness as a nation to the principles of Christian liberty and 
humanity, whose standard God has given us to bear aloft 
before the eyes of the nations. We feel humbled that 
while God is striking oflF the chains of slavery from the 
minds of men in Italy ; while the edict of emancipation, 
issued on the first day of this new year, by the Czar of 
Russia, goes forth for the breaking of the yoke of serfdom 
from the necks of his millions of slaves, that here in 
Republican America, the grand discovery has been made 
that slavery is a Divine institution, sanctioned by Christ 
himself — the foundation of all national prosperity — the 
jewel of our American institutions, to be cherished, 



18 Discourse. 

extended aud perpetuated for erer I We feel especially 
humbled and mortified by the weakness and imbecility, 
the corruptions and rottenness of our pro-slavery adminis- 
tration at Washington, at this critical period of our history : 
" woe unto thee," cried the prophet, " when thy King is a 
child." 

Nor are we free of sin as individuals in this matter. 
We have not loved freedom as our fathers loved it, as the 
dearest treasure of mankind, without which all else is 
nothing worth ; we have put business before duty — profit 
before principle — peace and union before righteousness — 
commerce and cotton before freedom and humanity. We 
have been proud and vain-glorious when we ought to have 
been humble and shame-faced. Some of us have been 
bitter in spirit toward our brethren who are heirs to the 
misfortunes, the perplexities, the curses, the delusions of 
slavery, when we ought to remember that in heart we may 
be no better or holier than they — that it is God and not 
ourselves who has made us to differ from them. 

I think also that we ought to be asbp-^od of our 
cowardly fears for the future. The same . )f Provi- 
dence who guided our fathers in forming our Constitution 
and Union, will preserve them just as long as they ought 
to be preserved, and nobody ought to wish them preserved 
any longer. Let us have faith in God, and dare to do 
right, though the heavens fall I 



54 W 



